SEASON 2
2.1 - OLD SCORES (IMDB: 7.6) After ruthless patriarch Piero's death, a new generation of Medici is key to Florentine history. Piero de' Medici still incarnates honorable business, but the bank is now is too deep trouble to hide, as he must even call small debts from local merchants and borrow against future papal income, so rival Jacopo di Pazzi and his ruffian nephew Francesco smell Medici blood, planning to oust them from the council, provoking and setting up Giuliano Medici to be abused yet seem a false accuser. 2.2 - STANDING ALONE (IMDB: 7.8) Pietro believes to be utterly betrayed by the foolish move to replace him. Lorenzo goes to Rome, asking pope Paul for an extension of the Medici bank credit from the papal tides. It's denied as the Pazzi man in the Roman Curia trumped the adopted Medici priest Carlo, but Lorenzo's mother gets mighty cardinal Orsini to promise his crucial support if Lorenzo weds his beautiful niece Clarice, who is quickly charmed but can't talked out of joining a nunnery. 2.3 - OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES (IMDB: 8.0) Finding the papacy unwilling to help out the ailing Medici bank, Lorenzo turns again to cruel duke Galleano Sforza, who accepts to pay off Milan's huge debt by trade treaty at rival city Bologna's expense. Lorenzo is patient with his unsophisticated but well-meaning bride Clarice and arranges for protege painter Sandro Botticelli to get his ideal model Beatrice to sit for a portrait at the Medici's expense. The new pope Sixtus IV appoints a Pazzi kinsman archbishop of Pisa, with jurisdiction over Firenze, so the Medici plot to lock him out. 2.4 - BLOOD WITH BLOOD (IMDB: 8.1) The death of the pope brings strategic challenges as Lorenzo negotiates with the Duke of milan and welcomes his new bride, Clarice, to Florence. 2.5 - TIES THAT BIND (IMDB: 8.4) Pope Sixtus IV shocks the Medici by forcing Milan's duke Galeazzo Sforza by threat of excommunication to annul the sale of the conquered city Imola, re-destined as wedding present for a papal nephew. At his mother 's request, Lorenzo offers 'side-tracked' Giuliano the post of governor of Volterra, but he declines, saying rightly Francesco was the first choice anyway, and admits he prefers Florentine society, notably his affair with Simonetta Vespucci, co-model for adoring Boticelli, but that project is canceled when her husband smells an adulterous rat. 2.6 - ALLIANCE (IMDB: 8.4) The Florentine republic's high magistrature of 'gonfaloniere' is up for (re)election, but the Pazzis will stop at nothing to sabotage any Medici candidate, even if that requires sabotaging the lucrative triple alliance with Venice and Milan. The pope follows the Pazzi advice to threaten Milan with excommunication, but Giuliano convinces duke Galeazzo Sforza to dismiss false Pazzi promises, which alas leads to a bloody riposte. 2.7 - BETRAYAL (IMDB: 8.6) he Sforza duke having been murdered on Pazzi orders, Jacopo plots to hire condottiere count Montesecco to seize Firenze and eradicate the Medici. Lorenzo still hopes for peace trough pope Sixtus IV, but as he sends his sister, she's prevented from speaking the Medici man in the curia, whom Montesecco blackmails into abusing her to set the trap. It now appears that a papal teen nephew just create Cardinal Riario is heading a papal peace mission, but is serves as cover for the bloody plot to slay all Medici in the cathedral. However a delay occurs. 2.8 - MASS (IMDB: 9.1) The Pazzi prepare to launch their final attack against the Medici family.